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Cantina Talk: Kathleen Kennedy Isn't Going Anywhere

Kathleen Kennedy just extended her contract as Lucasfilm head honcho for another three years.

Jesse Grant/Getty Images

Even though the next movie doesn't hit theaters for more than a year, there's a surprising amount going on in the Star Wars universe— or, at least, behind the scenes of it. In some cases, it's new projects getting the headlines, and in others it is—oddly—the status remaining quo that is grabbing people's attention. Regardless, one thing is for sure: Everyone who thought Lucasfilm was preparing to U-turn away from its current course was probably wrong.

The Old Order Doesn't Changeth

The Source: News reports on Lucasfilm and Disney's hiring practices

Probability of Accuracy: It appears to be 100 percent legit.

The Real Deal: Despite the rumors that many were pushing, it turns out that Disney is more than happy with the performance of Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy. How can we know this for sure? Because Disney just extended her contract for three years, something that massively successful corporations don't tend to do with people they're dissatisfied with. (That said, some are suggesting that it's actually just a stay of execution, which is … well, pretty surreal, really. Would that most of us had such understanding and generous bosses.) Particularly interesting in the Hollywood Reporter story is the suggestion that Disney and Lucasfilm are considering pushing Star Wars more in the direction of television than movies in the future, which could be particularly interesting if true, not least of all because George Lucas was thinking this a decade or so earlier. Perhaps the future of the galaxy far, far away lives on the small screen?

A Brief, Blurry Glimpse Into the Future of Star Wars

The Source: Fans with telephoto lenses and good sources

Probability of Accuracy: It all depends on how much stock you put in speculation and rumor, really.

The Real Deal: Speaking of Star Wars television, set photos have started showingup from Jon Favreau's first live-action Star Wars series, and it certainly looks like we're going to be revisiting Tatooine, or somewhere pretty close to it. The photos, taken from a far-away distance and a week before production starts on the series, appear to show a marketplace or something similar, with machinery not unlike the farm equipment from the very first Star Wars movie. Could this be a hint of the kinds of locations fans should expect from the new series, or an impressively deep attempt to confuse the kinds of people who'd take photos and share them with the internet? We won't know until the show debuts in 2019, just like we won't know if Pedro Pascal is in it until then, either.

Feel the Fandom Force, Friends

The Source: An official Lucasfilm announcement

Probability of Accuracy: Totally, emotionally, legit.

The Real Deal: The latest evolution of the attempt to turn Star Wars into a lifestyle arrived last week with Our Star Wars Stories, which isn't a fan-helmed attempt to make standalone movies, but rather a series of short videos intended to showcase how Star Wars has changed—and, let's be honest, it's an official Lucasfilm project, so that means "improved"—people’s lives, as told by those people themselves.

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Soon, You Will Face Darth Vader Yourself (Virtually)

The Source: Another official Lucasfilm release

Probability of Accuracy: In this case, you can definitely believe your eyes. Even though it's virtual reality.

The Real Deal: Coming in 2019 is yet another canonical addition to the mythology of what happened between Episode III: Revenge of the Sith and Episode IV: A New Hope—except, this time, you get to explore it for yourself. Vader Immortal: A Star Wars VR Series is a three-part virtual reality series created by ILMxLab and writer/producer David S. Goyer that will be released for Oculus Quest. "We came up with the concept, and then we had a conversation about where in the timeline it would fit," Goyer told StarWars.com about how the game—the details of which remain under wraps—will fit in with the larger picture of Darth Vader's development into the badass Sith Lord everyone adores. "Everyone felt very strongly that it's a legitimate Vader story and that it advances the ball in terms of who he is and what his goals are. We were also determined to make sure that it's a story you can only experience in VR. There aren't any other plans to port this into any other medium." There is, however, a good ol' 2-D trailer.

The Last Jedi's Haters Are, Indeed, Trolls

The Source: An academic study into online chatter

Probability of Accuracy: This almost certainly depends on which side of the divide you're on, but at least this study explains its methodology and reasoning.

The Real Deal: Was Star Wars: The Last Jedi really as bad—or as destructive to fandom and the franchise—as its critics claim? According to a new academic study, maybe not.

Morten Bay's paper, which has the catchy title "Weaponizing the Haters: The Last Jedi and the strategic politicization of pop culture through social media manipulation," argues that much of the Last Jedi criticism was, surreally, an offshoot of ongoing attempts by politically-motivated trolls to destabilize online discussion. "The likely objective of these measures is increasing media coverage of the fandom conflict, thereby adding to and further propagating a narrative of widespread discord and dysfunction in American society," Bay writes, before going on to suggest that at least 50 percent of social media distaste for the movie was, in fact, manufactured for this purpose. The whole paper is available for download and is worth checking out. Even Last Jedi director Rian Johnson is into it.